John Bambenek

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In the land where the dead rise to vote, it is long known that the election code the state operates under is absurd. Illinois has taken ballot engineering to an art form to ensure the election results are known before

In 2010, Governor Quinn signed into law a landmark budget reform law called “Budgeting for Results”. The goal was quite simple, that spending should be tied to measurable goals of the state and that funding should change according to what

The culture of corruption is a well-known fixture in Chicago and Illinois politics where it doesn’t matter what you know, it matters who you know. We have one governor on his way to jail and the one before him currently

Last week, an e-mail went out to all employees in the Illinois Department of Public Health to let them know that their corporate cards will no longer work after April 22nd because Bank of America is not renewing the contract

Illinois has long earned the reputation as one of the most corrupt states in the union and for reasons too numerous to list here. However, not content to have reached rock bottom, the Illinois Municipal League (a collection of local

Not much more than an hour after nutter Jared Loughner shot a Congresswoman in the head and killed several others, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik starting blaming the Tea Party and the right-wing for the killing. Some of the victims were not

It’s no secret that health care is an industry beset by huge problems. The problem doesn’t as much stem from “evil insurance companies” as it does from a system created by federal and state governments to make a system as

Retired Sandra Day O’Connor has had a busy month this month despite her retirement. Just this week she sat in on a federal appellate panel which struck down as unconstitutional Arizona’s law which requires voters prove that they are citizens.

Things are getting desperate out there for Democrats, who have nowhere to hide from their legacy of failure. Illinois has already gone into bizarre territory with Governor Quinn’s “Vote for Me or the Puppy Gets It” ads. Just when things

Imagine this, your state has a budget deficit of $13 Billion dollars (despite having a constitutional clause that requires balanced budgets). The state is months late in payments to local schools. Medicaid providers aren’t getting paid to treat the poor

It’s no secret that ethics means something a little different here in the Land of Lincoln. We’re home to where the last 3 of 6 governors have gone to jail. Our last governor was just convicted of a “Martha Stewart”

After 30 days of trial and 14 days of deliberation in the up-and-down Rod Blagojevich corruption trial, the jury has announced it’s verdict. Of the 24 counts against Rod Blagojevich, the jury found Rod Blagojevich on only one count, the

It is no secret that Illinois is going broke with over $6 BILLION in unpaid bills to social service providers, Medicaid doctors, mental health providers and schools. It is also no secret that the state has a $13 BILLION budget

Just one day after the Democrats seized control of Congress, the Chief Executive of Fannie Mae, Franklin Raines, received the patent for a residential cap-and-trade system (Patent 6904336), What this means is that Raines, along with several colleagues who also

The University of Illinois Alumni Association recently awarded it’s “International Alumni Award for Exceptional Achievement” to the current President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa Delgado. Since the University of Illinois is the premier university for the state of Illinois, let’s see

In what quickly became the headline story from the results of the Illinois Primary on February 2nd, Scott Lee Cohen was nominated as the Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor. This charming gentlemen spent around $2-$3 million of his own money

When ACORN was caught stacking voter rolls with fake names leading up to the 2008 election, we stood up and took notice. Maybe an aberration, maybe part of a plan to undermine our system of elections. On Election Day, Black